Rayonier Advanced Materials Announces Manufacturing Day Essay Contest Winners

Rayonier Advanced Materials
Media Release
December 8, 2017 5:03 p.m.

 

Students from four Nassau County middle schools celebrated Manufacturing Day with experts and engineers at Rayonier Advanced Materials’ Fernandina Beach plant in October. After a half-day of activities, including interactive “Learning Labs” and a “Look Around the Mill” tour, students went home with the following essay prompt: “Why manufacturing matters to my community.”

Rayonier Advanced Materials received more than 100 submissions. One winner from each school was selected based on the style and clarity of their essay. The four winners will each receive a $100 Amazon Gift Card.

The four participating schools were: Callahan Middle School, Fernandina Beach Middle School, Hilliard Middle School and Yulee Middle School.

The essays were judged by: CA McDonald, Fernandina plant manager at Rayonier Advanced Materials; Laura DiBella, executive director of the Nassau County Economic Development Board; and Lake Ray, president of the First Coast Manufacturers Association.

“We were delighted to see so many submissions,” said CA McDonald. “We couldn’t be more proud of the winners and everyone who participated. We hope this sparked the students’ interest and that it inspired some to pursue careers in manufacturing themselves.”

RYAM Manufacturing Day Essay Contest Winners

Callahan Middle School – Tala Mellecker

Fernandina Beach Middle School – Owen Hamilton

Hilliard Middle School – Amelia Dyal

Yulee Middle School – Angel Delgado

The winning essays are presented below.  The Fernandina Observer adds its congratulations to the winners!

_____________

Name: Tala Mellecker
Grade: 8th
School: Callahan Middle School

WHY MANUFACTURING MATTERS TO MY COMMUNITY

After my field trip to Rayonier, I started thinking about how much they do for me and my community. Pulp is important worldwide and so are all the other things they make. I would like to tell you why manufacturing is important in my little world—Nassau County.

By making cellulose specialty fibers, they create a number of things that are used by many people including food, cosmetics, medicine, hygiene, absorbents and digital display screens. Two of my favorite things are food and cosmetics!

Nassau County doesn’t have a lot of places for people to work. By being located in Fernandina Beach, they are providing a lot of jobs for a lot of people. Not only do they have people on the production line, they also hire people for the offices and semi-truck drivers.

Another reason is their trees are providing clean air, which provides life.

The digital screens they help produce on every smart phone, computer and TV in Nassau County. This helps provide information for school, news, jobs for administrative people and my personal favorite—socializing!

In closing, I would like to say I enjoyed my visit to Rayonier and I learned a lot. I use most of the things I already talked about every day. I appreciate what you do for my community and for letting us come to learn about pulp and cellulose specialty fibers!

___________

Name: Owen Hamilton
Grade: 8th Grade
School: Fernandina Beach Middle School

Why Manufacturing Matters

Manufacturing has many positive impacts on communities. For example, they create jobs, make important products and they can help other companies. To start, manufacturing companies like Rayonier create jobs, some of these can be simple gate workers or complicated like engineers. These engineers can be anything from civil to chemical, and inspire teenagers to get those degrees. However, there are more jobs other than this. Not only engineers, but also other jobs like the programmer for all the software or the operators of the equipment.

Secondly, manufacturing is important to our community because it produces important products for us and places further away. For example, Rayonier makes products that go into toothpaste which is sold all around the world. Not only this, but they also make things that help local businesses thrive like paper and lights.

Lastly, manufacturing helps our community because it lets other businesses grow, develop and thrive. For example, they generate energy as a side effect. Not only this, but they also make products that help them. Another benefit is they draw people from other places to move here, which lets other businesses sell more product.

To conclude, manufacturing has major effects to the success and future of the companies and businesses that are in its community.

______________

Name: Amelia Dyal
School: Hilliard Middle Senior High School
Grade: 8

Why Manufacturing Matters to our Community

 Look around. What do you see? Did you notice there are many goods and services that manufacturing provides to your everyday life? Manufacturing is an essential and important asset to our communities. Manufacturing is important because it provides jobs for many of our local towns and cities, it’s used to make many everyday household items, and it provides an important institutional foundation for learning and developing process skills. All in all, manufacturing plays a major role in our everyday lives.

To start off with, manufacturing is important because it provides jobs for many different people. When you’re in the manufacturing and engineering business there are many jobs that you can have. One specific skill isn’t needed to work in manufacturing. Jobs can range from working with computers, working in a lab, or manual labor. It’s also important that businesses have the right people for these jobs because without them nothing would run smoothly. Manufacturing is essential to communities because it provides many people with jobs but, have you ever thought about what exactly different manufacturing plants make?

Furthermore, manufacturing produces many everyday household items. Some of these items are parmesan cheese, syrup, and even dog food! These items contain cellulose which can act as a thickening agent or it can keep products from clumping together. Cellulose can be found in pharmaceuticals, electronics, and cosmetics. Manufacturing influences many parts of our lives.

Lastly, manufacturing provides an important institutional foundation for learning and developing process skills. Without manufacturing we would hardly ever learn new things or get to experiment with new ideas. These plants are the source of making products better than they were before. The best factories and plants frequently conduct experiments to improve their processes and to increase the quality of their products. Manufacturers are always trying to improve their work.

In conclusion, manufacturing is essential to communities. It’s important because it provides jobs to many people, produces many useful products, and it’s a foundation for learning and developing process skills. Manufacturing is a crucial asset to communities no matter where you live.

____________

Name: Angel Delgado
School: Yulee Middle School
Grade: 6th

Why Manufacturing Matters to my Community

Manufacturing is important because beginning in 1979, the United States lost 41 percent of our manufacturing jobs. By December 2009 many of them were back. It was important because they died out and now they are coming back and we want to keep them.

Manufacturing jobs are important because without manufacturing we would not be able to make things that we need to survive. Some manufacturing companies make things that go in our food like Rayonier. Manufacturing companies like Rayonier also give people good jobs that help our community so people are able to get jobs and make money.

Other things manufacturing companies do for us is recycle. We need to recycle more to keep our planet healthy and so animals have a healthy environment to live in. They also instead of just going around and destroying more than one place manufacturing companies buy their own land so they just do their thing there instead of everywhere else.

Manufacturing companies like Rayonier are a perfect example.

Manufacturing companies like Rayonier help our economy because Rayonier plants trees that we need to make oxygen because trees are the things that make oxygen. Without oxygen, we can’t breathe safely and if we can’t breathe we can’t live. Also, they help our economy by giving people jobs so then there aren’t as many jobless people that need money so they can live happy lives with that job. They also help our economy by recycling. Companies like Rayonier recycle instead of wasting things like paper and bottles. Rayonier also finds ways to use the byproducts from the chips. That way they are not wasted.

As my conclusion, manufacturing companies matter in my community because they help the economy, they recycle, they provide oxygen and they provide good paying jobs for people who don’t have them so they can make money.

 

 

 

 

2 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

RM Rizzo
RM Rizzo(@raffaelamarie-rizzo-fenn)
6 years ago

What a great way to help kids learn more about what makes the world work, than a day in a facility like Rayonier, AM. inspiring students to “write” about what they learned is a 360-degree learning experience. Hats off to Rayonier, AM for all you do for our community and for helping to further the education of our students. The students all mentioned jobs, which are critical to a thriving economy and community, but they failed to mention that Rayonier, AM also pays lots of taxes–city and county, which is an important element in sustaining our community. And, they are a caring, philanthropic company with a human face, giving more than $110,000 to non-profit agencies in this year alone. That supports helps provide educational and human services within our community. The company also has a cast of caring employees who work to help extend what the company does with their own efforts, a great example is their United Way program.

Chris Hadden
Chris Hadden (@guest_50037)
6 years ago

It isn’t supposed to be a propaganda opportunity for the mill is it? Because it sure sounded like that. I wonder if the students should also write an essay called “why manufacturing can be dangerous to our community” in it they could examine what kind of manufacturing causes the greatest pollution and harm to the environment. How manufactures need to be held accountable for the toxic things they are putting into the community’s water and air. How manufacturing is often a trade off and the community is asked to sacrifice many things for the manufacturer, in return for the benefits derived. Hopefully some of that was covered in class if not on the mill tour.